(1 of )Associated Press
Despite all the acclaim for Coogler’s first two films, 2013’s “Fruitvale Station” and 2015’s “Creed,” he has yet to score an Oscars nod as either a writer or director. But Rotten Tomatoes says Coogler is the best young director of his era.

(2 of )FILE - In this Jan. 29, 2018 file photo, Chadwick Boseman, a cast member in "Black Panther," poses at the premiere of the film at The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The language of Wakanda in “Black Panther” is very much real, including the “click” sounds that are making audiences murmur, impressed. That’s thanks to South African actor and cast member John Kani, who introduced the idea of using it with his onscreen son, Chadwick Boseman. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

(3 of )Marvel Studios
Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther/ T'Challa

(4 of )Michael B. Jordan star in 'Black Panther.'

(5 of )Mari Copeny, third from left, watches a free screening of the film "Black Panther" with more than 150 children, after she raised $16,000 to provide free tickets in an entire theater on Monday, Feb. 19, 2018 in Flint Township, Mich. As "Black Panther" debuts in theaters across the U.S., educators, philanthropist, celebrities and business owners are pulling together their resources to bring children of color to see the film that features a black superhero in a fictional, un-colonized African nation. (Jake May /The Flint Journal-MLive.com via AP)

Oakland references loom large in 'Black Panther'

ASSOCIATED PRESS

| February 23, 2018

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While most of Marvel's box-office breaking "Black Panther" takes place in Wakanda and South Korea, we get to see Oakland, California, in 1992 and in the present day. The Bay Area city, which serves as some Wakandans' American home base, is a fitting choice for the film.

While Harlem is the American city used in the comics, it was a personal choice for writer-director Ryan Coogler to use Oakland, his home town, as the connection instead. The first scene that Coogler wrote was the opening scene that takes place there in the early 1990s, he told I09. "Writing it was a test of what this movie could be."

"The interesting part about being black is until you open up your mouth, people don't know where you're from," Coogler told the outlet. "I thought it would be cool if you start on the scene in Oakland. You have these two black dudes, they talk and (you go) 'Oh, it's two black dudes from Oakland.' And then at some point the guy switches and starts talking with the African accent. 'Oh s-, wait, this dude's from Africa?' You realize, 'Oh yeah, I can't tell the difference. He (looks like) the same people you know.'"

Co-writer Robert Joe Cole added that starting in Oakland "was never a question. That was Ryan. That's his heart. That was where that was going to be."

Oakland is also the birthplace of the Black Panther organization, which began there in the 1960s before it became a nationwide phenomenon. One of their most popular community programs - providing free breakfast to children - started in the California city in 1968.

In "Revolutionary Suicide," Black Panther co-founder Huey Newton explained the origin of the party name: He had read about how people in a Mississippi county, who had armed themselves "against establishment violence," adopted the black panther as a symbol for their political group. He then suggested to fellow founder Bobby Seale that they do the same. "The panther is a fierce animal, but he will not attack until he is backed into a corner; then he will strike out," Newton wrote.